VICE PRESIDENCY: Mr. Commonsense

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By pointing out its enormous political dangers, he is said to have talked the President out of a scheme, proposed by Undersecretary of Agriculture Rexford Tugwell, to have the U. S. buy up all land on which taxes were delinquent, devote it to national planning and the unemployed.

He read the Cabinet a practical political lecture on emptying their minds and exposing their plans to the Press, pointing out that the habit got New Dealers into quarrels with one another and exposed their schemes prematurely to sniping from the opposition. With this bit of good advice the President heartily concurred.

Whether or not these reports were apocryphal, they were what would be expected of Garner by those who know him best: an isolationist in foreign affairs, a conservative in economics, a practical man in politics.

His chief peculiarity in the Cabinet is that he is no New Dealer at heart. All his life he had practiced the virtues which Calvin Coolidge admired. He and his wife, who belongs to a frugal Swiss family acclimated for some generations in Texas, lived modestly, saved out of their income even when it was only $5,000 a year. She worked, and still, from habit, works as his secretary at the Capitol. They "put by," and their fortune grew. Now they have their 350 acres in Uvalde, including a pecan plantation. In their safe deposit box are said to be mortgages on every church in Uvalde, and stock in many a local bank.

Such folk do not believe in the redistribution of wealth, in Title II of the Banking Bill (government-controlled central bank), in AAA crop restriction. Hence John Nance Garner is much closer in economic views to Carter Glass than to Franklin Roosevelt. In fact, when Garner was in the House he favored budget balancing and government economy. Nearest he got to New Deal financial views was when as Speaker he went on record for a public works program of a billion or two—and for that the Republicans booed him loudly (TIME, June 13, 1932).

Therefore, as statesman, Vice President Garner is opposed to much of the New Deal, disagrees often with his Cabinet colleagues. To him this or that Roosevelt scheme may seem "plain damn foolishness" but once it has been adopted as Cabinet policy and he has lost his fight in camera, he dutifully buttons his tight little mouth together and only his closest friends ever hear how he felt about the matter. Personally he is fond of Franklin Roosevelt, takes this attitude: "I'm the silent partner in the firm of Roosevelt & Garner. The Chief does all the talking for the firm." And while Partner Roosevelt is talking. Partner Garner, as a loyal party-man who has voluntarily suspended his judgment as a statesman, is getting in better backstage political licks for the Administration than any Vice President in modern times.